Water retained by various soil ingredients

Gastil marygastil@yahoo.com
Tue, 30 Oct 2012 14:11:11 PDT
Converting Hans-Werner's results to ounces and cups to compare to Mike's:

> 1 Liter of this dry substrate into a pot, the bottom and drainage holes respectively covered with a net (so no substrate will  escape after rinsing) WEIGH it before and after RINSING and DRAINING thorougly, the whole container will become 500 grams heavier.
> 1 Liter of dry SERAMIS, in the same "experiment" becomes 250 grams heavier. 


By my calculation, Hans' coir retained 4.2 oz water per half cup and his seramis retained 2.1 oz / half cup. 

So, if Im correct, then coir retains 4.2 times as much water than Mike's #2 sand (at 1 oz water per half cup) 
and seramis retains 2.1 times as much water as the sand.
This would indicate that coir retains a lot more water than peat.

I would welcome someone's scrutiny of my calculations.  Corrections welcome!

- Gastil



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